42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator

[Jockos]

I... I don't know what's the plan with this. As @allanp mentioned too, I think something is happening behind the curtains... but not in a good way.

Seeing the Liebherr crane, this excavator, their functionalities, and then their prices. Do they really want to justify releasing more cars in various scales by blaming bad sales of afore mentioned construction machines? Or am I seeing things?

[mpj]

They made a very good looking excavator but then somebody decided to make it very poorly functional and very expensive, so it will sell bad, to have one more reason to release cars, cars and cars...

Edited July 30 by mpj
Typo

[jorgeopesi]

I suppose cars are selling good and they do almost nothing so let´s do machines in the same way.

[Lim CL]

All I heard was the motor struggles when try to lift up heavy arm. 1 motor with too much gear making it too underpower. I hope JB70 will come up with his Pimp my 42215 soon. 

[Unbrickme]

I think this set becomes really awesome when you make it full rc: 

 

All functions, actuators, are actually pretty fast now. Also i used two motors for the bottom set of actuators, hard coupled, meaning it's able to lift much more than the default configuration. please let me know if you like my rc mod

 

[Tbricks]

22 minutes ago, Unbrickme said:

I think this set becomes really awesome when you make it full rc: 

 

All functions, actuators, are actually pretty fast now. Also i used two motors for the bottom set of actuators, hard coupled, meaning it's able to lift much more than the default configuration. please let me know if you like my rc mod

 

I don’t have all of the motors for that unless I gut everything else lol. Looks a lot more fun now though! 
 

I have 8043 and no other excavators from Lego even come close to it, legendary set.
 

When will your review of 42215 be out? 

[Unbrickme]

10 minutes ago, Tbricks said:

When will your review of 42215 be out? 

tomorrow

[Bartybum]

10 hours ago, Timorzelorzworz said:

After seeing this honest video and the speed of that "functions" ... Well yes, this is the most useless model ever seen in Technic.

100%

Lego tarted up 42006 and thought we wouldn't notice lmao

Edited July 30 by Bartybum

[Unbrickme]

56 minutes ago, Bartybum said:

100%

Lego tarted up 42006 and thought we wouldn't notice lmao

no its much more like the 2015 crawler crane, but twice as expensive

[Dylan M]

I'm a Flagship guy, but this time is a pass for me, very disappointing,  I've waited 2years for this! And this is what they offer? 

It seems  like this set didn't go through the Techic approval process, 

WTF,  Technic,  why you want me to leave you this time😭

[Bartybum]

1 hour ago, Unbrickme said:

no its much more like the 2015 crawler crane, but twice as expensive

I mean in the sense that 42006 was also an excavator with functions only in the top half

Edited July 30 by Bartybum

[Gimmick]

16 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Hi everyone, this is a video I've been waiting for from RacingBrick 

 

And too expensive to buy it and redesign the motorization. Poor little excavator.

[Auroralampinen]

Ok, thanks to this reviewer he actually shows the motor struggling sounds:). 

 

[Gimmick]

1 hour ago, Auroralampinen said:

Ok, thanks to this reviewer he actually shows the motor struggling sounds:). 

 

Periodic noises when lowering(!) the boom....very suspicious.

[Auroralampinen]

Ok, the raising and lowering of the boom and arm takes roughly 4minutes:/.

https://www.brothers-brick.com/2025/07/29/lego-technic-42215-volvo-ec500-hybrid-excavator-worth-its-weight-review/

Edited July 30 by Auroralampinen

[Jundis]

25 minutes ago, Auroralampinen said:

Ok, the raising and lowering of the boom and arm takes roughly 4minutes:/.

Hmm in the timelapse (10 x)  video it takes 4 sek ... strange mathematics...? Still too long, but 4 min can't be...?

[Timorzelorzworz]

The gearbox design is bad too. Not only the fact that functions are not parallel, the lever needs to bypass the coupler function all the time. The layout isn't good.

That's imho to worst Technic Set ever, 42070 was cool compared to this.

Edited July 30 by Timorzelorzworz

[Auroralampinen]

Well, i wonder, if you engage all the gearbox functions on at the same time, will the motor stall completely🤔

[Zerobricks]

1 hour ago, Auroralampinen said:

Well, i wonder, if you engage all the gearbox functions on at the same time, will the motor stall completely🤔

You can't?

[gyenesvi]

Only the best is good enough :) Build for real!

But seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a way to clear out the dumb battery boxes. Also, Lego has already done an independently motorized one, and a motorized one with parallel gearboxes, so this way of motorizing was the only one not done yet (maybe for a reason). Plus @Unbrickme was asking for distribution gearboxes all the time, it may all be because of him  (just joking) and now he's the first one to ditch it all, lol.. Anyway, I like the new triangular panels, totally worth the price

[Bartybum]

3 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

But seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a way to clear out the dumb battery boxes.

Neither, but it's such a flop of a way to do it lmao. This could've very easily been a motorized pneumatic set with independently driven tracks, two motors instead of one to double power, and it still would've been too expensive. I wonder what happened internally that they never reassessed the RRP?

Just for comparison, it's got over 400 fewer parts than the 42043 Arocs, and mind you, the Arocs had a lot of expensive parts - springs, a whole pneumatics set, linear actuators, new gear racks, etc etc.). Yet adjusting for Euro inflation, the Arocs would be around €260 today vs its €200 release in 2015. This thing's €400 and the only expensive parts are linear actuators and a new bucket. Where does a 54% price hike come? Both the Arocs and this are licensed.

Edited July 31 by Bartybum

[Jockos]

2 hours ago, Bartybum said:

Where does a 54% price hike come? Both the Arocs and this are licensed.

I think the reason is simple. TLG got emboldened by the fact that Technic is one of the top 5 best sellings themes for several years in a row. They don't feel ashamed to claim as much money as they ask for. Why would they? The same could be said for several other themes.

Logically, this set must've been 250 € at most (going by the Airbus helicopter). For me, in the better years the theme's charm was not only in the functionalities, but in its affordability too. Now both of them getting kicked around.

[thekoRngear]

On 7/31/2025 at 4:10 AM, gyenesvi said:

Only the best is good enough :) Build for real!

But seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a way to clear out the dumb battery boxes. Also, Lego has already done an independently motorized one, and a motorized one with parallel gearboxes, so this way of motorizing was the only one not done yet (maybe for a reason). Plus @Unbrickme was asking for distribution gearboxes all the time, it may all be because of him  (just joking) and now he's the first one to ditch it all, lol.. Anyway, I like the new triangular panels, totally worth the price

Yeah, I remember Unbrickme has been admiring how awesome distribution gearboxes are (for all the right reasons) in his videos for last 5 years! Apparently Lego listened to him with an inexplicable plot twist 

The 42215 will always be regarded as one of the (hard to make sense) mysterious sets of all time.

Edited August 1 by thekoRngear

[Jundis]

6 hours ago, Bartybum said:

This thing's €400 and the only expensive parts are linear actuators and a new bucket. Where does a 54% price hike come? Both the Arocs and this are licensed.

I think the comparison with the 42082 is even more fitting, as it also had 1 battery box, 1 motor and distribution gearbox, but no pneumatics.

We had a retail price of 230€ in 2018, which would be 285 € in 2025. But the model had over 4000 pieces, a steering and fake engine.

 

6 hours ago, Bartybum said:

....two motors instead of one to double power...

Thats really bugging me: This would have been such an easy solution to overcome the slow movement.

My theory is, this model has been planned with full functions (like 42100) and was priced 400 € but then came some product managers and read, that distribution gearboxes were great and boom - model gets changed. price stayed the same.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

1 hour ago, Jundis said:

read, that distribution gearboxes were great and boom - model gets changed.

or read that old C+ components will be phased out.